Be Wise: A Daughter's Reluctant Journey Through Dementia
Three things made 2012 a benchmark year in my life: freed from the arduous challenge of single motherhood, I began a yoga teacher training program at an urban ashram in Atlanta, GA, and relit the flame of my career ambitions as a voice actor; my 82-year-old father, the civil engineer, forgot how to make coffee; and my 80-year-old mother, the card shark, got lost driving to a Bridge game.
So, when I visited my parents in Chicago that January, I needed my parents to be the self-sufficient, intelligent people who raised me, so I could fly free. I needed them to be normal.
Later that Spring Dad was diagnosed with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus whose symptoms include dementia. That Summer he had surgery to alleviate pressure on his brain that might allow his mind and body to improve. I made more time to be with my parents, and to support him at the hospital and in recovery. My father's surgery resulted in negligible improvements.
I found out my mother got lost driving because one of her friends called me. At the time it was bewildering, but it was also just a blip on a very busy screen filled with my father's crisis. I couldn't imagine anything was wrong with my social butterfly mother, who'd taught kindergarten in the Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago, and managed the family's finances.
I was dismayed by these events that presaged my transition into life as a caregiver. I didn't want to take care of anyone. My daughter was grown. My twice a year visits to Chicago increased to four to six times a year. Selfishly, I wanted to activate my vision of the future, but it seemed impossible.
Circumstances came to a head in 2016 when my father descended the basement stairs of their house and was unable to walk back up. He spent the night in the crowded junky basement that had no bathroom, no space for sleeping. My mother didn't ask anyone for help. The exact details are a mystery to this day. I was informed by a neighbor over the phone. The result was that my father was taken from the house on a stretcher, naked, dehydrated, and demented. He was moved from the hospital to a nursing home for rehabilitation. After a month or two, I sat in a family meeting with staff to get the bad news that my father was too far gone to cooperate in his own recovery. They offered to keep him at the facility on palliative care. That sad conversation was followed by the Director of Rehabilitation's observation to me that my mother was exhibiting signs of dementia. Soon after, a doctor visit confirmed she had Alzheimer's Disease.
Caregiving your elders is the coming-of-age ritual that no one tells you about until you're in it. Or maybe you know it as something other people are doing, but you don't pay attention until it happens to you. When I became my parents' caregiver it seemed like every other person I met was 'helping' their family. It turns out one in four Americans over 50 are now caregivers looking after at least one family member, according to US News & World Report in August 2024. I couldn't imagine ignoring my parents need for help. I didn't want to be the one who stepped up, but there was simply no other acceptable choice.
Caregiving is exhausting physically. Emotionally you may experience isolation, the loss of your personal goals and work life, watch your peers as they seemingly surge ahead unencumbered. For some caregivers their own health deteriorates under the battering ram of their charges demands. As a Black Caregiver there were unique experiences of systemic racism to navigate.
I found the emotional reserves to survive and thrive through this unexpected season of my life through Yoga. Not yoga in the trite sense of perfect physical poses done at some fancy studio, but the real-life struggle to translate yogic and spiritual philosophy into hands on-care. Yoga rooted in the observation and imitation of nature, and the stillness and spaciousness it engenders.
As my parents required more and more of my attention, I sought guidance and relief by diving deeper into the yoga teacher training I began in 2012. In spiritual talks at my yoga ashram, I learned that Death happens to us all, but we can choose how we live and transition. Don't run from the challenges presented to you, dive into them. That's where your growth lies. She presented the first Noble Truth of Buddhism, Life is Suffering. I wrestled with these concepts. Yet, even as I took on more and more responsibilities for my parents (by the end of 2016 I was going to Chicago monthly) I didn't accept being a caregiver as my dharma or destiny. I always kept my eye on the prize of developing a voice acting career, and continuing my bread-and-butter business as a grant proposal writer, even as my progress slowed to a crawl.
My father and mother died in 2017 and 2023 respectively. I'd experienced being a long-distance caregiver, an in-home caregiver of my mother when we moved her to Atlanta, and navigated the assisted living system when we placed my mother in a memory care neighborhood. Somehow, I came out of the experience with my sanity, peace of mind, a solid career as an audiobook narrator and a yoga teacher.
Be Wise: A Daughter's Reluctant Journey Through Dementia tells my journey as a Black woman and how yoga spiritual philosophy helped me, not just survive, but thrive as a caregiver through my parents' dementia. It is a memoir that explores the mind-body-spirit connection with caregiving in the real world.